I took this photo from my back window the week that I came home from my February trip to southern California.
Fortunately, those icicles are long gone. This past Wednesday night, locally, our record low temperature for the date was broken by 2 degrees. (Many records were broken this winter, but I took note of this one because now it is truly spring. Right?) The record low had been 15° F and now is 13° F. I have decided to declare a win for Winter 2014: You won. You beat us in a record breaking way, and now it really is time for you to go back where you came from... OK? Winter, go home. Now! Do not turn back! The southern hemisphere might be your kind of place right now.
I know that spring is here because I saw two robins (together) in our yard last Saturday. That felt lucky, because even though I usually see a single robin by the first week of march, I really do not remember ever seeing two (together) as my first robin sighting of the year.
Thursday morning, as I drank my coffee, the sun was shinning very brightly and I got caught up in watching a pair of smaller, I think, finches seriously engaged in nest-building in a tall pine tree through my front window. I tried very hard to get a photo and I failed.
The robins and the finches reminded me of the hawk's nest at the Franklin Institute in Philadelphia, PA. I remembered that eggs were laid in past March's, and I went to check it out... I learned some very sad news at the "Hawkwatch at the Franklin Institute" blog. But there was also news of reason for hope. Let us all have hope for the Philadelphia Hawks. I do.
Later in the day, after lunch, my outdoor thermometer read 42° F, and that meant it was one of the warmest days of the week. I went out to get my mail and newspaper with my camera in my pocket.
It was very windy. I tried one last time to photograph the pine tree where I had observed a couple of steady hours of nesting activity. No birds there. I was cold. It was windy. (No birds. No photos.)
Nearby, I checked out a flowerbed, which had a fantastic crocus bloom a couple of years ago, and then, I walked up to a daffodil bed on the other end of the property. (No buds, no sprouts, no anything. No photos.)
No luck at all. Winter did his thing and he won and his photo is my only photo today. But he is done. I sent him home.
